In the heart of the
Argonne Forest there is a deep rectangular ravine so
formed, that it is enclosed front and rear and on both
sides by steep, wooded slopes. A little brook coursing
from east to west had been joined in primeval days by a
small tributary flowing directly from the south, thus
disclosing nature's instruments in the production of this
peculiar geographical formation. Sunlight seldom
penetrates into this valley, shaded by thick forest
growth. It is always sombre and still there.

Before the
Americans went through the Argonne, the place where these
two streams meet had been known as the head of the Ravine
de Charlevaux. Thereafter, and for all time, it will be
known as "The Pocket." It is the spot where the
"Lost Battalion " fought. It is hallowed ground
where starving heroes resisted against overwhelming odds
with "No surrender" for their watchword.

In the bitter
struggle through the Forest of Argonne, the 77th Division
after seven days of continuous fighting found its advance
on October 2d almost at a stand-still before strongly
wired and entrenched enemy positions. These positions
extended along the ridge of Bois de la Naza, across the
Ravine de Charlevaux, thence westerly over a wide hill to
a second ravine beyond, where they connected with enemy
trenches extending southward from La Palette Pavillion.
The most westerly of the two ravines ran north and south,
through the middle of the 308th Infantry's sector on the
left of our line. A wild tangle of trees, vines and
undergrowth covered the entire region through which this
system of defences was constructed.

Attack after attack
was made by our forces, only to meet impenetrable
machine-gun fire from skillfully concealed guns covering
every foot of this front. The least movement in our lines
was detected and invariably brought down instant fire.

The situation was
critical. The success of our operations depended upon
breaking through the enemy line. At this juncture, an
attack without regard to losses was ordered along the
entire divisional sector to start at 12:50 P. M. on the
2nd of October, supported by a barrage from the artillery
and a simultaneous attack by the French holding the
Binarville sector to the West.

The attack was
made. Elements from two battalions of the 308th Infantry,
accompanied by sections from Companies C and D of the
306th Machine Gun Battalion, found an apparently
undefended spot in the bed of the north and south ravine,
and quickly filtered through. This force, commanded by
Major Charles S. Whittlesey, was under orders, if
successful in breaking through, to push forward to
Charlevaux Mills and hold that position until the other
elements of our line had reached it.

Leaving D and F
Companies in position on the western side of the ravine,
Companies A, B, C, E, G and H of the 308th, with the
machine gunners, advanced on the east side, and by six in
the evening reached their objective. About ninety
casualties from flanking machine-gun fire were suffered
on the way, but the advanced battalion had captured from
the enemy two officers, twenty-eight privates and three
machine guns and crossed his heavily wired trench system.
The same night, the 3d Battalion of the 307th Infantry
attempted to follow, Company K alone succeeding in
getting through and joining Major Whittlesey in the
morning.

All would have been
well had the flanking elements been successful. But the
307th was held up before Bois de la Naza and the French
were checked in front of La Palette Pavillion. That
night, the enemy strung wire across the path through the
ravine that our advanced units had taken, and posted
additional machine guns to cover the valley. This linked
up the two sections of their trench system and placed a
closed German line to the rear of Major Whittlesey's
command.

Arrived at the
hill, south of Binarville-la Viergette Road, Major
Whittlesey took up a position for the night near the
crest of the hill in the vicinity of Bois de Buirrone,
about 500 meters east of the Moulin de Charlevaux. It was
a steep slope covered with underbrush and young timber.
In order to reach the position, the 600 men of his
command, including the machine gunners with their guns
and tripods on their shoulders, in the growing darkness
filed down the northern slope of the southern hill,
through the morass at the bottom of the ravine, and
across the stream over a bridge of planks. As they
crossed the brook, to right and left of them, the view
along the valley was open, with high ground rising at the
end of each vista. To the front could be seen the
Binarville-la Viergette Road, about a hundred yards from
the crest and along the slope on the side of which the
halt was made.

Digging funk-holes
was a severe work, for the ground was hard and stony.
Though they had no blankets, overcoats or other covering,
the men spent a rather restful night. Machine guns posted
to the front and flanks were undisturbed by enemy
movements.

At daybreak on the
3d, Company E, under Lieutenant Wilhelm, was sent back to
attack from the west of the ravine thereby assisting
Companies D and F in moving forward. Details started for
rations, as the men had gone forward carrying only one
day's rations. All reserve rations had been consumed
during the early phase of the advance. Fortunately water
was found at a spring just south of the position. These
ration details never returned.

At half-past 8 A.
M., German artillery shelled the position, but without
serious effect owing to the steep reverse slope. Because
of our position, the enemy's artillery never became
effective. Patrols had been sent out, but soon returned
with disturbing report of Germans on the right and left
flanks in small numbers and the impossibility of
establishing liaison in either direction. At about this
time, Captain Holderman with Co. K of the 307th,
consisting of 79 men, arrived and took position on the
right flank.

At 10 A. M.
Lieutenant Lenke returned with 18 men from E Company,
reporting that that company had been surrounded and that
Lieutenant Wilhelm had ordered him to get his platoon out
by any means possible. Lieutenant Wilhelm subsequently
worked his way through with a few remaining men.

A German trench
mortar suddenly opened fire, from 600 yards to the west.
Scouts reported the mortar protected by machine guns. A
platoon was sent to attack the mortar but met with severe
machine-gun fire and did not succeed in its mission. The
platoon brought back a prisoner who stated that his
company of 70 men had been brought in during the night to
take position in our rear.

Half an hour later
a report was received that the runner post system in the
rear had been broken, two posts having been attacked and
scattered by the Germans. A message reporting this fact
was immediately dispatched to regimental headquarters by
carrier pigeons. From this time on, it was impossible to
reestablish communication to the rear for several days.

The Battalion was
cut off !

To meet the
situation, the forces on the hill were disposed in a
square formation to repel attack from any side, and the
machine guns posted to guard the flanks and sweep the
ravine.

Along toward dusk
the murmur of voices could be heard to the left flank. A
patrol that had been sent out earlier in the day failed
to report back. Cossack posts which had been established
well outside of the position were drawn in. All reported
seeing large groups of the enemy through the trees. The
voices came closer and were now unmistakably German. A
command to "stand to" was given. The babel
continued in excited tones with a plenteous sprinkling of
the word "Amerikaner. " There was no doubt of
their intention to attack, but where and how were the
questions that interested our listening men.

The voices on our
left were joined by others on our front. Evidently
another platoon was coming into position. Darkness had
set in, and even without the dense foliage obstructing
the view, observation would have been impossible.

The ammunition of
our men was limited. When a nervous soldier on the left
discharged his piece he was cautioned " Steady
" and the rest of the line kept steady.

The babel had now
reached an excited pitch on our front, on the left and in
our rear.

Our front line
rested on the road cut into the side of the slope, and
above the road was a cliff, 18 or 20 feet high. The
presence of Germans on this cliff was reported by a
returning scout.

Suddenly from the top of the cliff, the voice that had
been doing most of the talking called out "Adolph!
" The answer came from our left, " Hier Eitel.
" Another gutteral " Hier " sounded in our
rear. Then, "Nun Alles ist in Stellung " (Now
everyone is in position), " Dritte Kompagnie alles
zusammen! " (Third Company all together!)
" Dritte Kompagnie " obeyed implicitly, and our
soldiers were treated to a ferocious coordinated
potato-masher attack. Potato mashers dropped in clusters
from the trees above them, they came from all sides,
singly and in twos and threes, and exploded with a
terrific uproar. Again the officers cautioned the men to
be "steady." Everyone remained calm, though
admittedly anxious. The attack, while seemingly of longer
duration, lasted not more than ten minutes.

Again the loud
talking started. Again the Boche platoon chiefs in answer
to their leaders called out, "hier." This time
they became a little careless and showed some movement up
over the cliff, and on our left. They were becoming bold
at our apparent "inaction." Yet each of our men
had his piece loaded and cocked and his eye on the
barrel, looking at his front. Word was passed that when
the command was given to fire, the aim should be low and
following the ground.

Again "Alles
ist in Stellung," came to the ears" of our men.
But the rest of the command. "Alles zusammen"
was never uttered. "Commence firing," rang out
over our line and the crack of rifle-fire that traveled
around our position was almost instantaneous. The Boche
were caught out of their funk-holes in erect positions,
as the cries that rang through the forest proved. The
potato mashing was checked, but machine-gun fire from our
rear raking the entire field was their answer to our
volley. "Alles zusammen" was heard no more that
night nor were there anymore roll calls of Boche platoon
leaders. After ten minutes of intense barrage, the enemy
machine guns quieted down and thereafter during the night
indulged only in occasional bursts of harassing fire.

During the attack,
the captain in command on our left flank sent a runner to
battalion headquarters for reinforcements. The runner
obtained eight men and rejoined the company with three.
Again the runner was dispatched for assistance. This time
he started back with twelve and lost four in the
machine-gun barrage.

The losses in
killed and wounded in the first day's fighting had by
October 4th reduced the effective strength of the forces,
including K Company, 307th Infantry, and the machine
gunners, to 520 men. During that day and the succeeding
days there was a constant drain on this small band for
patrols and runners sent out in an increased effort to
get in touch with regimental headquarters in the rear.
These patrols were uniformly unsuccessful. They never got
through the Germans on the heights to the south. During
the day of the 4th, the men were beginning to suffer from
lack of food. There were occasional bursts of machine-gun
fire and two trench-mortar attacks, of an hour duration
each, but it was not until 4 P. M. that the organized
attack was launched once more on our left and rear.

Again the voices in
command called out to the platoon leaders on all four
sides of us, but the names he called were different from
those of the day before. Then the Boche tried a trick.
One of our men was noticed by an officer putting on his
pack and preparing to leave his funk-hole. The amazed
officer inquired what this movement meant. The man stated
that word had been passed from the right to get ready to
move, because the Germans had chased the Americans back
and it, had been decided to retire from the position.
This was the first intimation our men had that the enemy
included English-speaking Huns and that the latter were
playing the bold stroke of sending fake messages into our
lines. The rumors of retirement was quickly squelched and
our men all stayed quietly in their places.

When the Huns
figured that enough time had elapsed for all our men to
be standing on their feet, suddenly, with a terrific roar
and tearing crash, every one of their machine guns opened
up on our positions at once. While the fire was coming
from rear and flanks, a fusilade of potato-mashers and
grenades descended from the cliff in our front. Then, as
suddenly as it had started, the machine-gun fire stopped
and a voice called out, "Gaz Masks!" The
pronunciation of the words was unmistakably German and
the command in form was obviously wrong. So nobody was
fooled. " Gas masks hell!" called out one of
our men on the right, as he fired in the direction of the
voice. Immediately, an unearthly howl went up, of the
kind emitted only by a wounded Boche.

Throughout the
night the fighting continued, with machine-gun sniping
and potato-mashers on the part of the enemy, and our men
firing every time they heard a voice or movement. Many of
their shots reached the mark. The woods on the outskirts
of our positions where the Boche were lurking were filled
with moaning and howling until well on into the next day.
From that time on, the Boche called out many of his
commands in English. Menacing shouts such as "
First, Second and Third Companies this way " and
" Bring up ten machine guns on the left, "
interspersed with a wide vanity of jeering remarks, all
in perfect English, were thrown out to tantalize our men.
The talk was not one sided, however. The Boche were told
in plain language, English and German, what the world
thought of them. One epithet in this repartee that always
infuriated them into silence was " Wint Betebren
" a rather opprobrious term, hateful to the military
class, which means literally "Wind-bag ring, or
circle or group."

To follow the
sequence of events in "The Pocket" and to
distinguish between the attacks that were hurled against
its defenders in the next three days is almost
impossibility. To the men who went through the experience
it was a hideous nightmare. Under the constant strain of
defending themselves at all times from every conceivable
kind of an attack, launched from every one of four
directions and sometimes from all four at once, elemental
considerations alone swayed them. The necessity of
constant alertness for their own preservation, the
passionate desire to kill the enemy, to destroy as many
as possible of the mocking devils who were calling out
jests and jeers from secure concealment, controlled their
thoughts and regulated their existence.

One day was like
another. Starvation was creeping on them. There were no
meal times to mark the flight of time. There was water in
the brook flowing through the bed of the ravine. But the
price of a drink of water by day was a life. At night,
the Boche played his machine guns on the water holes and
it was only by great good luck that a man could secure a
supply and win his way back to his funk-hole in safety.
Rain fell almost continuously. The nights were damp and
cold. The men, without blankets, overcoats or other
shelter, shivered till daylight and got little rest.

At intervals, the
enemy trench mortars, firing at practically point blank
range from the left flank, tore up the entire slope to
which our men were clinging. The hill became a tangle of
twisted shattered trees and splinters. Men were literally
blown from one hole into another. Showers of mud and
gravel fell upon those who were fortunate enough not to
come into actual contact with the flying shell splinters.
When it was deemed that the "minenwerfers" had
wrought sufficient Confusion and commotion, the enemy
sprayed the ground with a pitiless rain of machine gun
bullets. During daylight it was a rash act to stand
erect. Positions were changed by crawling along the
ground. Even this was far from safe, for the enemy showed
themselves expert in grazing fire and their missiles had
a way of singing through the grass and catching a man
whose duty required him to leave his funk-hole.

The wounded could
receive only the scantest attention. After the first two
days only two of the medical detachment were surviving to
render first aid. These two heroically crawled from one
sufferer to another. But in scores of cases the injuries
were gaping shell wounds or bullet holes, requiring more
than a mere bandage. Bandages gave out and it was
necessary to take bandages from the dead to bind up the
hurts of the living. The dead lay unburied on the ground.

During the daytime,
burying parties would not have lived to perform their
duties. After three days, many of the men had become so
weak from hunger it was beyond their strength to dig
graves in the hard soil. At night it was impossible to
see, except at those times when the ground was
illuminated by the weird glow of Very-lights shot into
the midst of our funk-holes by the Boche.

Throughout these
six days and nights in the pocket, with their bodies
tortured by hunger and wrecked by fever, with death
always at their elbow, the spirit of resistance never
once weakened in the hearts and minds of officers and
men. On the night of October 4th, the firing of our own
troops could be distinctly heard to the south, and hopes
were high that relieving forces would soon break through
and join them. At intervals in the noise of the combat,
the sound of our Chauchats would be distinguished, and
the friendly firing seemed to grow stronger and draw
nearer. Disappointment was keen therefore, when daylight
dawned without a sign of reinforcements.

Although panels
were displayed, they were hardly distinguishable through
the trees and no assuring signals were received that our
aeroplane had located exactly the battalion's position.

One cheering event
marked the next day. Our artillery, commencing its fire
on the hill to the south in the early morning, suddenly
jumped to the slope on the southern-hill opposite the
battalion's position, just in time to crash into large
forces of the enemy massing for an infantry attack. For
half an hour, the air was full of flying Dutchmen and
parts of the same, then, in a miraculous way, our shells
leap-frogged the position of our own troops and fell on
the crest to the north of them. It happened at that very
moment that a large number of Boche, probably to offset
the defeat of their attack on the south, were advancing
from the north with grenades to hurl from the cliff. They
caught the second edition of our barrage square in their
faces, and the attack went to pieces. It seemed like an
act of providence.

One of our
aeroplanes flying over the terrain where the Boche had
organized, before our firing, was seen to drop a signal
" Fire on me. That was probably one of the
instruments that providence used.

" It was a
beautiful barrage" said an infantry officer who
enjoyed it that day from his fox-hole on the hill. For
several hours the woods resounded with the howls of
wounded Boche, until their comrades were able to hurry
them out of hearing.

But that night, the
Chauchat firing to the south seemed fainter and weaker
than the night before. This discovery, coming at the end
of a particularly terrible afternoon, was enough to
thoroughly dishearten the most courageous.

At 4 o'clock that
afternoon, the enemy had covered the slope on which our
men were located with an intensity of machine-gun fire
difficult to exaggerate. It seemed impossible that a
single foot of the ground could escape without a bullet
searching it.

Many of our men
were killed and many wounded by this barrage. The wounded
were brave at all times, but there were moans and piteous
cried in the dark that night. The day began with 375 as
our effective strength, but this number was greatly
reduced by casualties suffered in the afternoon's attack.

If the men on the
bill had known that October 6th was a Sunday, they would
have called it Blue Sunday. Things seemed at their
lowest. The firing of relieving forces to the south had
not grown appreciably nearer. Hunger was becoming almost
unbearable. In one funk-hole, two men were dividing a
morsel of bacon-rind that one of them found in his
pocket. He had used it to rub over a wound in his hand.
Now they were eagerly eating it, the first particle of
food in four days. In another hole, the occupants were
subsisting on a little mixture of salt and pepper
discovered in a condiment can. At intervals, they would
dip their tongues into this concoction, and go through
the form of eating. One man crept out of the brush with a
small chunk of black break that he had salvaged from the
body of a dead Boche. Friendly airplanes hovering over
the region of the ravine dropped parcels of food at
various times during the day. But this food fell with
tantalizing regularity out of the reach of our
beleaguered men. The Boche continued his usual daily
program of minenwerfer bombardments at hourly intervals,
interspersed with machine-gun fire from every angle. The
dead of the day before covered the ground. The
machine-gunners of the 306th Battalion lost both their
officers. After repelling attack after attack on our
flanks for four days, only one of their nine machine guns
remained in action. Ammunition for our machine guns was
almost exhausted. The effective strength of all units had
fallen to 275. It was a time for spirits to fail. It was
a time for courage to flicker out. It was a time when the
few survivors could look into one another's faces and say
with conviction, " There is nothing before us but
death."

One thing, however,
in that desperate situation, no one forgot. The command
had advanced to the ravine where it lay under orders to
take the position, and to hold it at all costs until the
other elements of the line of the 77th Division should
reach it. The orders were plain. On the 6th, there was a
general sensing through the little band on the hill that
the test had come. Without a command or a suggestion
being given, it was known throughout the hill by every
officer and man that if the Germans captured the slope
they would have to find there the last of its defenders
dead at his post.

It was at this time
that a dramatic episode occurred to crystallize this
purpose and to give it expression.
At four in the afternoon of the 7th, a private of Company
H reported to the commanding officer. That morning with
eight others he had slipped away into the forest to
secure a parcel of food dropped not far away by one of
our planes. The party encountered a German out-post. Five
of the nine were killed and the rest wounded and
captured. One of the latter was blindfolded, given a note
by the German Commander and sent into our lines. He
delivered the note to Major Whittlesey. This was the
note:

"To the Commanding Officer-Infantry, 77th American
Division.

" Sir:--The bearer of this present, Private has been
taken prisoner by us. He refused to give the German
Intelligence Officer any answer to his questions, and is
quite an honorable fellow, doing honor to his Fatherland
in the strictest sense of the word.

"He has been
charged against his will, believing that he is doing
wrong to his country to carry forward this present letter
to the officer in charge of the battalion of the 77th
Division, with the purpose to recommend this commander to
surrender with his forces, as it would be quite useless
to resist any more, in view of the present conditions.

"The suffering
of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German
lines, and we are appealing to your humane sentiments to
stop. A white flag shown by one of your men will tell us
that you agree with these conditions. Please treat
Private as an honorable man.

He is quite a
soldier. We envy you.
THE GERMAN COMMANDING OFFICER."

Major Whittlesey read the note and passed it over to
Captain McMurtry. He read it and handed it to Captain
Holderman. The three officers looked at one another and a
grim smile wrinkled their features. " We are
appealing to your humane sentiments to stop. " This,
after six days of the most inhuman warfare conceivable
hurled at them by the Boche in attempts to annihilate,
that had failed. It was almost funny.

The fact of the
receipt of the note soon spread over the hill. Men too
weak to stand on their feet raised up on their elbows and
cried: "You Dutch -s, come over and get us."
That was the only response. Major Whittlesey took in the
two white panels spread on the ground for the purpose of
indicating the position to our aeroplane. There should be
nothing white showing on that hillside.

Another answer was
on its way to the Boche. That very evening the crackle of
musketry and the rat-tat-tat of Chauchats and Hotchkiss
guns fell on the ears of the beleaguered men, coming from
the rear and right flank. Beyond the fraction of a doubt,
it was the long-hoped-for, despaired- of relief. It was
brother Americans of the 77th Division furiously fighting
their way through. Sheer exhaustion forced the tears from
the eyes of men to whom the hope of life was returning.
The Boche, however, was not quite through. In one last
desperate effort to impress his "Humane sentiments,
" on the survivors in the pocket, he descended with
all his force on the right flank. For this attack, he had
reserved his liquid fire, and scorching flames shot into
our ranks.

But our men were
revivified. They sprang into the fight to the tune of
every choice oath in the English language. Our one
remaining machine gun at last was firing at a target
point blank. In word and deed, the Huns got hell, and
back they crumbled never to come on again.

As the Germans
dwindled away through the trees into the night, the men
of the 307th came up on the right, with food and
ammunition in abundance. A half-hour later, patrols of
the 308th were reported coming in from the south. The
relief was complete. The fight of the " Lost
Battalion "-the battalion that was never "lost
"-was over. On the morning of the 8th, the 252
survivors of the 679 that had entered the
"pocket," with their sick and wounded, marched
south through the deep ravine to rest.

Their hillside is
now quiet. The dead lie sleeping in a little enclosure
near the western border of the valley. The crash of
minerwerfers and the whine of the bullets is stilled. But
if the trees on this torn slope of France could ever
break the silence, they would say "By these
splintered wounds you see upon us, we will live to mark
the valor of the Americans. "